Monday, December 3, 2007

I'd been wanting to try this little Italian spot in Brookline for months, but my boyfriend had a bad experience there in the past (namely, he'd ordered rabbit, and when the waiter accidentally gave the dish to a man at the next table, had to watch that man eat it even though he hadn't ordered rabbit -- he thought it was an amuse bouche, perhaps?). This Saturday night John agree to give it another shot, and we weren't sorry.

We had 8:45 reservations and had to wait 15 minutes to be seated, but the bartender cleared a spot for us at the bar and brought our drinks right away, as well as a plate of chunks of warm, toasty, airy peasant bread with olive oil and olives, which we could have easily filled up on if not careful. After we were seated and ordered, the adorable pregnant Irish waitress brought us a free order of calamari as well. Now that's service.

I like the menu at Pomodoro because there are lots of main-dish pastas -- sometimes pasta is relegated to the "first course" section of the menu at nicer Italian restaurants. And many of these pasta options are vegetarian. They all sounded delicious to me, but I went for the roasted vegetable lasagna. This comes with a very rich, delicious tomato sauce -- must be where the place gets its name. It's a very sizable chunk, too, with plenty of vegetables among the layers of delicate pasta and cheese; I could only manage to eat about 20% of it after all the pre-meal delights.

To make matters better (or worse) we were also served a free dessert -- a little cube of tiramisu that tasted like it included Irish cream -- methinks this spot has the same owners as the nearby and lovely Matt Murphy's Irish pub.